Indie Game Developer Blue Ocean Strategy

I. “Blue Ocean” Explained

A “Blue Ocean” strategy is a strategy where you don’t create a product within a market and differentiate it in some way; you instead invent a new market to enter entirely. To succeed in a Blue Ocean strategy you must:

 Make a new market.

 Make competition irrelevant.

 Create new demand.

 Differentiate and have low costs.

There is nothing as profitable, rewarding, and growth-inducing for a company than succeeding with their Blue Ocean strategy. Take Yellowtail wine; a wine company that successfully made their own market within the wine business, and that is now the fastest growing business ever because of it. With so many payoffs, it’s no wonder that pursuing a Blue Ocean strategy is incredibly difficult. Luckily there are models to help us; the Four Actions Framework and the Strategy Canvas, which we will explore below.

II. Indie Developer SWOT

Before delving into the mentioned models, we first have to understand our company from a SWOT perspective. In the below graph we see the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for our video game development business. Using this information, we will then be able to plug it in to our Blue Ocean models, and hopefully find develop a strategy to enter our own unique market.

Indie Development SWOT

Strengths Weaknesses Opportunity Threats  Unique business  Very little initial  Cheap games  Virtually no model brings funding. with high value funding fresh ideas for  No huge- to customers. compared to games every company  Huge customer AAA companies. time. security. support for  Anyone can  Small, close-knit  No brand game genre. produce indie workforce. awareness yet.  Low costs of games – lots of  Great  No prestige or production. competition! communication. resume yet.  Great  Indie Copy Cats  Deadlines of our  Small workforce crowdfunding – When own choosing. means slower sites make notorious  Guaranteed game money gathering producers fresh, interesting development easy. shoddily copy games. than AAA  Untapped game your game and  Very cheap costs. company ideas. sell it for less  Personable and workforces.  Cell phones with tiny strong  Starting from becoming an changes. communication scratch. emerging game  AAA companies with customer. device. starting to develop their own “indie” divisions.

As we can see from the SWOT, our small size is both a blessing and a curse. We will be able to have great communication between ourselves and our customers, and we will be tight-knit and determined to create great games. Our unique style of bringing in a new developer’s idea every time we need a new game will keep our ideas fresh and revolutionary; avoiding the stagnation that many companies face. Our small size and newness could also be our downfall. We have no brand awareness, and very little funds. Luckily, in Indie gaming, this tends to not be a problem. Money can be raised through crowd-funding sites like KickStarter, and Indie gamers will try any game that appeals to them, regardless of who is making them. That being said, once a company can prove it makes amazing Indie games, like developer ThatGameCompany, Indie gamers will flock to their later releases.

There is a ton of opportunity in the Indie game market. There is a huge customer base for it; the costs of producing an Indie game are quite tiny, and the rewards can be astronomical. MineCraft, an Indie game created by developers Mojang, has netted $23 Million dollars. On top of this, Indie games are becoming more and more recognized by casual and hardcore gamers alike. Cell phones have begun to be used as gaming systems, and hundreds of thousands of Indie games have been developed since. Just this past week, Sony has announced that they are adding an “Indie” section to the PlayStation 3’s online store; the Indie market is booming. That being said there are pitfalls as well. Huge AAA companies have noticed the profitability of Indie games, and are now starting their own Indie divisions, cleverly renamed so Indie gamers don’t realize that it’s actually a huge company involved. With their amount of funds, it is very nerve-racking for developers who rely on crowd-funding to start their games. III. Indie Game Developer Four Action Framework

The following model is a “Four Action Framework”; a rough model of what things we can change in our business to maintain our Blue Ocean strategy. The four components are Raise, Reduce, Add, and Eliminate. “Raise” is about focusing on your companies strengths and making them even stronger. “Reduce” is finding your weaknesses and fixing them to the best of your ability. “Add” is exploring your opportunities, finding new ones, and capitalizing on existing ones. Finally, “Eliminate” is acknowledging your threats and doing anything it takes to minimize their influence in your market. These all relate to your SWOT, and that is why it is paramount to create a detailed SWOT before attempting a Four Actions Framework.

As we can see, we have to raise awareness of our unique business model and keep our employees happy and friendly to succeed. This can be done through more advertising, and more teambuilding events like pizza days and dinners. On the other hand, we have to reduce our weakness of not having many funds by utilizing crowdfunding and taking out smart loans. Our advertising should be done on gaming websites, to reach the highest concentration of our target marget. For “Add”, we must continue to offer a unique game experience to the gamer, and a unique, friendly relationship with our customers. We should explore unique payment methods like microtransactions so gamers get the most out of the games that they play, and develop a trusting relationship with our company. To eliminate competition, we should breed loyalty among our customers through loyalty programs and high quality games. We must be in the market to please the gamer first and foremost, and to make profit secondly. Through happy customers, the profit will follow, and it will ensure our lasting success.

IV. Strategy Canvas for Indie Developers

The following is a “Strategy Canvas”; a model that plots the approach we will take for various facets of our company, and the approach that others companies are currently taking. This can show us if our approach is similar or unique to another company’s, and what we can do to make ourselves ever more unique.

As we can see, none of our approaches overlap with out competition, so we are on track to implement our Blue Ocean strategy. In two instances, Price and Community, we come close to rival company Zynga, so these could be facets of the business in which we try to be more competitive. Price is the overall cost of the game, “Graphic Qual” is the graphical quality that the games have; how pretty they are. “Unique Mechanics” simply means, “is the game unique?”; are there other games like it or is it a copy of past games? Our company should have top notch customer service; this breeds customer loyalty, and makes us look better than our competitors, which isn’t hard seeing as EA was just voted the “worst company in the world”. “Community” is the sense of community that the players feel with our brand and with each other. We want to create an experience where players can play and discuss our games together, and compete with friendly competition. Zynga has this approach down, as all of their games are played with Facebook friends, etc. We will want to try even harder to get a competitive and rewarding experience for our players, through In-game rewards, a trophy system, and loyalty bonuses. Finally, “Customer Relations” is simply PR; how much do our fans enjoy us? To make them love us we will install loyalty reward programs, give- aways, blogs that keep the fans engaged and up-to-date on our work, and more.

V. Conclusion

In conclusion, it is very possible for our business to create a Blue Ocean strategy, and to open up an entirely new game market. If any developers are going to create a unique experience game after game, it will be us thanks to our business model. By focusing on our Four Action Framework, we can add marketing and customer loyalty, and utilize crowdfunding websites to get our business rolling. If we stay true to our Strategy Canvas, and go above and beyond in the aspects where our competition rivals us, we will thrive. More specifically, if we can make our customers feel like they are all part of a large, fun, family company; we will succeed.